Octavian Paler Quotes

I spent much of my life hiding.

I feared vulnerability more than my actual emotional pain itself!

To forge an untouchable, invulnerable identity is actually a sign of retreat from this world; of weakness, a sign of fear rather than strength, and betrays a strange misunderstandin g of an abiding, foundational and necessary reality: that untouched, we disappear.

That only shows you have no heart,’ she said. But her eyes said that she knew he had a heart, and that was why she was afraid of him

Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you.

I can't let them see my doubts, or the wounds they've inflicted on me.

On one level, I am a total softie, sort of depressed and afraid of losing the people I love or failing them. To disguise that, there's all this harsh, poop-centric, external swagger, full of nastiness. I'm a cloaking device.

I'm a total wreck. Afraid to let anyone near. Afraid they'll see the real me.

There are times when sorrow seems to me to be the only truth.

I am desperate and vulnerable. ... I am always terrified.... Beauty can sometimes be so very troublesome.

I am happy, thats just the saddest lie

I'm sarcastic, skeptical, and sometimes callous because I'm still afraid, deep down, of letting myself be hurt.

I wanted to tell you everything. And that hurt because some things were too scary. Some things even I didn’t understand. How could I tell someone—someone I was really talking to for the first time—everything I was thinking? I couldn’t. It was too soon.

the thing about pessimism is that in most cases it's nothing more than a front behind which a body can hide its most sweetful yet painful hopes. please forgive mine.

I feel like a big faker because I've been putting my life back together, and nobody knows.

..we wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes- this debt we pay to human guile; with torn and bleeding hearts we smile.

Everybody's wearing a disguise, to hide what they've got left behind their eyes.

Carrie doesn't seem to talk about anything with sharp edges. Maybe she's afraid they might poke her and then she'd burst.

To make great art, you had to expose your soul, and some things should be left safely in the dark.

You might think I'm bulletproof, but I'm not.

He pauses when he finishes undoing the last button, then closes his eyes. I can see the pain slashed across his face, and the sight tears at me. The Republic's most wanted criminal is just a boy, sitting before me, suddenly vulnerable, laying all his weaknesses out for me to see.

We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,- - This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile And mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be otherwise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see thus, while We wear the mask. We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries To thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh the clay is vile Beneath our feet, and long the mile; But let the world dream otherwise, We wear the mask!

I'm not a fighter, I'm a bleeder.

Fear betrays unworthy souls.

Everyone is broken a little, I think, and the most broken of all are those who pretend they are not.